


Frivolities

by neveralarch



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: (but robots), Body Dysphoria, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, just gonna. get some projection all over these evil ancient aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27122230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: "My correct form of address is in my ID tag," snapped Starscream. "Use it or lose your tongue."
Relationships: Megatron & Starscream
Comments: 75
Kudos: 200





	Frivolities

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Dez, James, and everyone else on discord or twitter who've heard me ramble about this concept for like. Six months.
> 
> This fic contains a few different kinds of robot dysphoria, externalized and internalized prejudice, and off-screen violence. Please let me know if you need details.
> 
> ETA: I had to restrict comments to registered users bc of an anon who was harassing me/other commenters, sorry.

"Good morning, Commander Starscreamwarframe," said a grunt in the hallway.

Starscream was late to a command meeting and trying to walk and read a briefing on his HUD at the same time. He still stopped dead in his tracks. "Excuse me?" he said. "What did you just call me?"

"Um, Commander?" said the grunt, who was at least perceptive enough to realize he was in danger, though _not_ perceptive enough to stop using the subharmonic for addressing warframes.

"My correct form of address is in my ID tag," snapped Starscream. "Use it or lose your tongue."

The mech's optics glazed a little as he checked Starscream's public tag. "Commander Starscreamscientist? Well, that's stupid, you're the fragging air—"

\---

"This is unacceptable," said Megatron.

Starscream, hands covered in energon, agreed. "I _warned_ him. I told him if he didn't use the correct—"

"I spent thirty minutes listening to Shockwavecomrade attempting to give _your_ report," said Megatron. "And when I inquired as to your whereabouts, what do I find? That you're busy brawling in the hallways and causing casualties among our troops."

"It's not my fault he had friends." Starscream sneered. "Don't know why anyone would _want_ to be friends with the little idiot. He called me a warframe!"

Megatron sighed and leaned back in his chair. The conference room was empty, now—only a few abandoned datapads remained as evidence that there had ever been a command meeting. Later Starscream would probably be annoyed that Shockwave had butchered his presentation. At the moment he didn't have the emotional processing space.

Starscream knocked an empty chair out of the way and rested his hand on the table, resisting the urge to dig his claws in and score it. It didn't matter, it didn't matter, he _knew_ who he was and anyway the grunt wouldn't be saying another word to _anyone_ for a long while. Tongues were full of finicky parts, tricky to rebuild. He’d be hard-pressed to find a medic willing to invest the time, especially when he could fight just as well without it.

"Starscreamcomrade," began Megatron.

"Don't call me that," said Starscream.

"It's a neutral form of address," said Megatron, the same line he always took. Did he fuel on his own philosophy, or was he _trying_ to be annoying? Either way, Starscream was sick of it.

"I don't want neutral," he said, trying to force his voice to remain even. "I want what's in my fragging ID tag."

"Fine, Starscreamscientist," said Megatron, with exaggerated patience. "Have you considered that you're a heavily armored fighter jet who's in command of my air forces?"

Starscream crossed his arms. "Yes?"

"And that perhaps one might be _justified_ in assuming that..." Megatron trailed off in the face of Starscream's glare. For a moment, Starscream fantasized that they could be done with this conversation, that Megatron would just admit that Starscream was right and throw the grunt out an airlock like Starscream had been _trying_ to do before Soundwave had shown up and dragged him to this ridiculous meeting.

But Megatron never could leave well enough alone. "What's wrong with being a warframe, anyway?" he asked.

Starscream shuddered. He couldn't figure out how to explain the anxiety/misery/revulsion that always flooded his emotional circuits when he considered the classification, so he settled for: "Everything."

"Internalized functionism," said Megatron, heavily. "If you simply recognized the _value_ of being a warframe, rather than focusing on the restrictions others seek to chain you w—"

Starscream's fingers dug into his left arm with a crunch of metal. For a moment his sensors went bright with pain, almost strong enough to ignore his still overactive emotional circuits. Then he managed to yank his talons back out and the pain settled down into a dull ache. An alert popped up on his HUD, but he dismissed it. He already knew he'd popped an energon line, he could feel it leaking.

Megatron sighed and held out a hand. "Let me see."

"No," said Starscream, and took a step away from the table. Toward Megatron.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Megatron. "You're bleeding."

Starscream scowled, but he allowed himself to drift closer until he was in range to be grabbed and hauled into Megatron's lap. A big hand pried Starscream's fingers away from his arm, then lifted an armor panel so Megatron could reach underneath and crimp the line closed.

"I'm going to lose pressure in that hand," snapped Starscream.

"Then give me your soldering iron," said Megatron. "I know you keep stealing them from the medbay for your ‘experiments.’"

Starscream considered denying it, but—well, his left hand was already going numb, and the soldering iron was difficult to use with one hand. He pulled it from his subspace and tossed it on the table in front of them. Megatron took it without a word.

He was halfway through sealing Starscream's energon line when he said: "You could reformat to a microscope, if you'd like. Something useful in the lab, where you could get tools without stealing them. The science corps is always asking me for more speacialists."

"No," said Starscream, immediately. "No, I'm the air commander, you're not getting rid of me so easily."

"I'm not trying to get rid of you." Megatron blew on the solder to help it cool. "I'm _trying_ to _help_. You're always fussing with your frame, why not make it into what you really want?"

"I want to be a jet," muttered Starscream. "I just..." He trailed off, frustrated, unable to ever properly explain.

He'd taken the intellectual class exams, back when the functionists were still in fashion. A seeker could never qualify for the scientific class, but he'd thought maybe, if he could just be declared function-exempt, maybe that would be enough to satisfy the hollowness in his spark. He'd failed. Thundercracker had told him the test was rigged, when they were sitting in the bar after the third and final failure. That it didn't matter. Who cared what people called him?

Starscream cared, for some horrible, unfathomable reason. 

"Mmm, I understand," said Megatron, into the silence.

Starscream startled upright from where he'd slumped against Megatron's warm chest. "You do?"

"Of course I do." Megatron pressed Starscream's armor back into place over the repaired energon line. "We'd all be pretty little seekers if we had the choice." 

\---

Later, sitting in the mess with Thundercracker and Skywarp, having an argument about whether rotaries belonged in the air force, Starscream remembered Megatron's words.

"They should just reformat," he said. " _Everyone_ would be a seeker if they had the choice."

Thundercracker snorted. "I'm pretty sure Vortexwarframe isn't going to reformat to make your formations neater, Starscreamscientist."

There was always a little flicker of joy, hearing his proper address from his trinemate's vocalizer. Starscream ignored it in favor of continuing the argument. "That's not what I meant," he insisted. "It's just a more desirable frametype. Beautiful, deadly, graceful, strong—"

"Yeah, yeah, everyone wants to frag seekers," said Skywarp. "But I don't hear mechs fantasizing about _being_ us."

"I knew a mech who wanted to be a seeker," said Thundercracker. "Little data entry bot, used to come hang out at the bars and talk to people. One day he showed up with a whole frame reformat, _gorgeous_ wings, told us to call him Whirlwindcourier. He'd sunk all his savings into it, but he got a job carrying mail for one of the guilds. Seemed pretty happy."

"Oh, sure, there's always been mechs like that," said Skywarp. "Is that what you're talking about, Screamerscientist? Dunno if Vortexfragger is the type."

"Hmm." Starscream crossed his arms, his fingers soothing the residual ache in his left arm. "No, I suppose _he_ isn't. My mistake."

\---

Megatron sat in the commander's chair on the bridge of the flagship, listening idly to the busy chatter around him as he contemplated the sleek lines of Starscream's back.

Starscream had been strange lately. He argued less, listened more. Megatron had also caught him staring, quite often—although this had also brought it to Megatron's attention that he spent an inordinate amount of time staring at Starscream.

Well, he'd forgive himself that. Starscream _was_ apt to plot against him, and anyway he was rather beautiful to look at. Megatron had always enjoyed looking at seekers, imagining what it must be like to bear the heavy weight of wings on delicate but powerful thrusters. Everyone thought seekers were attractive, he wasn't alone in his obsessions.

It was strange, though, the few times he'd tempted one into his berth had been... disappointing. He'd enjoyed plugging into the other's processor, feeling their frame from the inside, the ghost of flight, that heady weight of wings. Almost like he was a seeker himself instead of an old piece of mining equipment repurposed for war. But when it came time to unplug, Megatron found himself reluctant and unsatisfied even as his partners slurred his praises. 

Perhaps Starscream would be interested in—

"Look," said Starscream, interrupting Megatron's thoughts by propping one thruster on Megatron's armrest. "I've just had them redone. What do you think?"

Megatron had to clear his vocalizer. Starscream's thruster, almost _thrust_ under Megatron's nose, had a wide, rounded cowl with a double ring of gold. Gorgeous.

"Acceptable," said Megatron, too late to sound casual. He fought the urge to tuck his own, gray, serviceable feet under his chair. It would be ridiculous. No one expected _his_ feet to look like that. He wasn't a jet.

"I saved the blueprints," said Starscream, as if he could hear Megatron's thoughts. "Have you ever considered reformatting as a jet? A stealth bomber, maybe—something big but maneuverable..."

"No," said Megatron, his voice oddly hoarse. He knocked Starscream's foot off his chair. "I don't have time for frivolities."

"It wouldn't be frivolous." Starscream leaned forward, too graceful to be unbalanced, and traced a finger over Megatron's chest. Megatron found himself looking up at Starscream as he outlined the shape of a cockpit on Megatron's armor.

"You're the leader," murmured Starscream. "You can be whoever you like..."

Megatron seized Starscream's hand, his actuators shuddering with the effort of—what? Of sitting and looking up at his troublesome second? "Go find someone else to pester," he said. "I'm not playing your game."

"Hmm." Starscream stepped back, shaking off Megatron's grip. "Of course, Megatronwinglord."

Something shimmering and anxious and uncomfortably _good_ flitted through Megatron's spark. "Megatroncomrade," he snapped.

"Of course," repeated Starscream, and turned on one perfect heel. He was humming as he walked away, happier than Megatron had seen him in decades. 

Megatron sat there for quite a long time before he remembered that he was on the bridge, surrounded by unnaturally silent soldiers who were pretending they hadn't heard or seen a thing. He surged up to his feet (the wrong feet).

"As you were," he announced. "And don't be distracted by Starscreamscientist's nonsense."

The murmur of agreement as he left the bridge was almost reassuring. Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, please let me know! You can also share it on [DW](https://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/110528.html), [twitter](https://twitter.com/neveralarch/status/1318610509499932672), or [tumblr](https://neveralarch.tumblr.com/post/632517668256235520/frivolities-neveralarch-transformers) :)


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